


if we try to retrace

by orphan_account



Category: BLACKPINK (Band)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Flashbacks, Fluff, Side Ships, exfic, semi college au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 06:19:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14928803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: All of a sudden Jisoo is there, back in her life. But this time around, Jennie doesn't know what to do. Not after four years of being apart.-also posted in asianfanfics, i posted it here for other's convenience





	if we try to retrace

**Author's Note:**

> if you read this on the other site, it might look weird here. this version is edited and compressed into less chapters.

Jennie deals with the inevitability of her moving back to Seoul. It's something she's constantly avoided since she's been staying in the US, in Italy, and just recently France.  
  
It's only appropriate, she thinks, that she should be absolutely dreading moving back to Seoul, because that means seeing the people who've rejected her clothing line proposals five years back -- and Jennie tries to convince herself that that's the reason why she's been trying so hard to postpone making a branch of her business in Seoul. Certainly it's not because of a _someone_ she knows that lives there.  
  
_No_ , it isn't.  
  
It's been four years since Jennie has even seen or talked to said someone, and it's been ten years that said someone has been on Jennie's mind. And she tries not to think about it, about that someone, and tries not to think of the small chance of passing by her or running into her on accident.  
  
There are a million ways to meet her, and then there are other million ways to _not_ meet her. But then again, Seoul is a big city, and the probability of meeting a particular person is practically astronomical.  
  
Jennie forgets they have mutual friends.  
  
Jennie tries not to think about their mutual friends.  
  
So yes, Jennie has postponed this branch expansion for more than two years because of the people who once rejected her ideas. That's exactly it, not because of past relationships that didn't exactly end too well. Certainly not because of someone she's still hung up on even after four years.  
  
_Whatever_.  
  
She manages to go through two whole weeks of staying and moving in Seoul without her friends slash employees. Patrick and Rochelle are managing the branch in Paris fairly well. They've started as co-workers, and ended up being good friends over the span of a year, when they both took Jennie out to a night filled with very bad decisions and alcohol.  
  
For all her denying, Jennie still has a subtle fear sitting on her stomach, not a lot, but still enough that she doesn't want to look over her shoulder when she's getting coffee from a café for fear she might see her.  
  
_Her_.  
  
Jisoo.  
  
Kim Jisoo.  
  
The same Kim Jisoo she's currently seeing through the glass panes of a Chanel boutique, picking out shoes. The same Kim Jisoo, but isn't. The same Kim Jisoo, but this time she's not sporting oversized sweaters and leggings and comfortable shoes. The same Kim Jisoo, but this time she's in tight dresses and trying out high heels.  
  
Jennie wants the earth to swallow her whole.  
  
She walks away as fast as possible from the boutique without looking like she either a) has stolen something from the line-up of very expensive couture boutiques or b) has seen a ghost.  
  
It might as well be option b, because for Jennie, Jisoo is almost a ghost, just a remnant of the past. If you don't count the she's alive and breathing and she's in a thirty-meter radius away from you.  
  
The problem of Seoul City, Jennie thinks, is that the sidewalks are very slippery. Although it's impossibly cold, it's not snowing. However, it seems that the concrete somehow has found a way to have an icy sheen.  
  
The problem of Seoul City is that the sidewalks are very not high-heel friendly, and that there are pretty girls in each corner helping you out when you happen to be in a small inconvenience. Pretty girls in the form of Kim Jisoo holding her hand out to you as you lay on the cold concrete is Jennie's case.  
  
She wants the earth to swallow her whole.  
  
Without thinking about it -- because _really_ , what even is Jennie supposed to do to get out of the very awkward situation -- she grabs Jisoo's hand and pulls herself up. Jisoo's hand is as soft and warm as she remembers.  
  
Oh yeah. She just slipped. And her ex-girlfriend just helped her up.  
  
_God_.  
  
"Clumsy as ever, Jennie," Jisoo beams a large smile, something Jennie hasn't seen apart from Jisoo's instagram and snapchat and when Lisa and Rosé send her pictures of them three. "I didn't think that the first time I'd be meeting you again after four years is when you happen to be lying down on dirty concrete, but here we are."  
  
It seems that Jennie's extensive vocabulary has immediately seized up and evaporated into thin air, because she can't make her mouth move to form audible words and sounds. Jennie knows about five languages -- Korean, Nihongo, English, French and Mandarin -- and all of them have just went down the drain and all she manages to say to Jisoo is a downright pathetic: "I- uh-"  
  
Thank the Gods for Jisoo's ever charming and endearing personality, because she bursts out into an adorable giggle not a second later and Jennie already feels like the weight in her stomach is gone and is replaced with something worse. Insects. Butterflies.  
  
"I'm sorry," Jisoo stops giggling but continues to smile widely, that Kim Jisoo smile, and Jennie wants to die right then and there. "I'll stop."  
  
"It's fine I was just..." Jennie stops for a second and looks at Jisoo. Really looks at her. "I forgot the sidewalks were kind of slippery. And, uh, stupid me wore high heels, so..."  
  
"Pretty horrible decision making." Jisoo supplies.  
  
"Pretty much."  
  
There's a beat of silence and Jennie's scared that the beat becomes two beats, then four, then eight- but thankfully it doesn't because Jisoo's already saying something. "I wasn't aware you moved back here. I mean- I was. Chaeng and Lisa already said something something about it but I didn't think I would actually meet you without planning back here."  
  
"This isn't exactly the most conventional way of meeting people."  
  
"That's what I love about you." Jisoo says with a grin, without realizing what it means. Jennie freezes, and Jisoo doesn't seem affected by what she said at all, but she finally realizes when she sees Jennie's demeanor. "I didn't mean it like th-"  
  
"This is awkward." Jennie cuts her off. "Really awkward."  
  
Jisoo nods.  
  
"I'm... I have to, uh, get going." Jennie swallows. "So... bye. I guess I'll have to see you soon. With the girls."  
  
"No more embarassingly lying down on dirty concrete next time?" Jisoo teases.  
  
"No more. However, with Rosé and Lisa, I doubt anything is impossible."  
  
There's that silence again, and ironically it's louder than any EDM track that plays on one of the clubs Jennie went to when she stayed on New York. One beat. Two beats. Four beats.  
  
"You still have my number right?"  
  
_From four years ago?_ goes unasked, and Jennie thinks of answers that doesn't mention or bring up the past. Jennie absolutely does not have her number. On a rash decision four years ago she deleted it despite having memorized the number, but it has been years and Jennie thankfully forgot the combination of the numbers. Thankfully.  
  
"Yes." She lies.  
  
"Text me about those plans to meet up." She says with a hopeful lilt to her voice. "With the girls."  
  
"I will."  
  
-  
  
**LISA MANOBAN, 21.14:** Hey!! Just wondering when you'll be free? We MISS YOU SO MUCH and you've been in the city for more than two weeks and we feel NEGLECTED .  
  
**LISA MANOBAN, 21.15:** Just kidding. I know you're very busy w/ moving and stuff and ur business but if we still dont have an affirmative date by next week chaeng and I will have no choice but to personally barge into your apartment despite not knowing where it is  
  
**LISA MANOBAN, 21.15** : Miss you, Nini.  
  
**LISA MANOBAN, 21.15** : Jisoo unnie does too.  
  
**JENNIE KIM, 23.21** : I miss you girls too, Lisa.  
  
**JENNIE KIM, 23.22:** And don't worry, I'm definitely calling on the first sign of an empty schedule.  
  
-  
  
There are nights when Jennie feels not at peace with herself and with the new environment she's placed in. Well, not exactly new environment, since she's lived here most of her life and grew up in here. But still: Jennie feels uncomfortable in Seoul City.  
  
Maybe it's the weather, she prompts once, but New York City wasn't exactly the warmest places she's been too.  
  
Maybe it's the fact that she's trying to avoid somebody that's been so fixated in her life.  
  
It's not like she can avoid Jisoo entirely either -- they're both in the similar social groups, what with them making the same friends in college. College. It seems so long ago that Jennie almost wants to go back to it - go back to studying a horrible degree that she didn't even care about just to go back to the times when she was happy with her personal life.  
  
Jennie wants to schedule a date with her friends, she really does. But picking a building to hire out on a very expensive rate when you have only two people on your very caucasian ten-member team that speaks in korean is, as is anything with Jennie's chosen profession, rather... hard.  
  
It's been a very hectic month filled with meetings and sleepless nights. CEOs never sleep, apparently; that's the downside to all the money in the bank.  
  
It's only about three days into a new month in Seoul when Jennie finally has a clear Saturday, and she contacts Rosé on a Friday night.  
  
"Hey, stranger," Rosé sings onto the phone. "Been about sixty-seven years before you finally decided to ring me up."  
  
They talk in English, and Jennie still recognizes the slight accent in Rosé's tone. "I didn't exactly come back here to leisure."  
  
Rosé lets out a small chuckle. "So, hotshot. Why are you calling, then?"  
  
"Well... my assistant says I have a whole day off tomorrow. Might wanna hang out? Bring Lisa?"  
  
"What about Jisoo?"  
  
Jennie swallows. She doesn't want to think about Kim Jisoo and her beautiful smile and her now dark brown hair. She doesn't want to think about Kim Jisoo and the fact that they inevitably need to be friends again, or at least act like they are, because they're Jennie Jisoo Lisa and Chaeyoung, and bad break-up or not, they're about the most close-knitted foursome there can be.  
  
And Jennie doesn't want this to come between all of them.  
  
"Her, too." Jennie says with a smile, even though Rosé can't see her. "We'll bring the gang back together... I miss you all."  
  
"Jisoo unnie says she ran into you weeks ago."  
  
"Oh yeah. If you call helping me up because I slipped and fell running into somebody, then yes. We did run into each other."  
  
"You did what?" There's a huge laugh down the line and Jennie shushes her.

"In my defense the concrete was slippery and I was wearing  _stilettos_."

"You're still clumsy, huh?"

"Slightly." There's a beat of silence, but Jennie is comfortable. She missed this.  
  
"So where are we going?" Rosé asks.  
  
"I don't know, really. I was thinking of something that doesn't require a lot of energy? I've had enough of spending that for the past month. Maybe something chill, or whatever."  
  
"Did you just say chill?"  
  
Jennie blushes. "Maybe."  
  
"Okay, here's what. I'll call the other two and plan everything, you can get your beauty sleep because I'm sure you're in the middle of piles of paper and have like three coffee cups scattered on your desk and a couple cans of red bulls that you _insist_ you drink with straws because you once saw it on Rupaul."  
  
Jennie looks around her office. It looks exactly like that, and Jennie hates how Rosé still knows her work ethics even after all those years. She knocks down an empty can of the energy down to the floor. "Okay. See you tomorrow, loser."  
  
"Hey."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I'm glad you're back." There's a pause. "Loser."  
  
The call ends there. Jennie sighs and looks around her office. She has a feeling that once Lisa acquires her office's address, it won't be a long time before she barges in and makes herself comfortable, so she cleans up. She gets the empty cans of red bulls and dispose them properly, along with the papers she probably doesn't need anymore. Disposes of the takeout packaging. A pizza box. Two cartons of dimsum. Leftover gyoza that she's pretty sure should be radioactive by now.  
  
She's a little messy without direction.  
  
Normally Jennie can't work in messy environments, i.e., her office pre-cleaning, AKA her office an hour ago, but somehow she's managed to get her branch finally running, and already talking to Korean fashion icons, celebrities that are interested in representing the brand. Somehow through her pent up frustration and really messy workplace she managed to push through and make everything work out.  
  
She's the last one to leave from the small building they managed to get with a very small discount. Apart from the guard, of course, who's probably dozing off already, but is looking very attentive and awake when Jennie passes through.  
  
"Good bye, Ma'am." The guard addresses.  
  
"Good bye. Have a good night."  
  
Jennie walks on toward where she parked her car, her very new car that she just got yesterday when she got tired of car rentals. Jennie can absolutely get a driver in no time, but she's twenty-seven and young and wants to feel twenty-seven and young, and not some sort of a snotty forty-something-year old fashion designer.  
  
The streets of Seoul are still bright at midnight, especially on the uptown. It reminds her a little bit of New York City, and the people on the sidewalk remind her a little bit of Paris.  
  
She feels at home.  
  
Jennie hates driving without music. She almost never drives without her existing playlist, but her new car has no aux cord, and she has absolutely no idea what's on the radio.  
  
_Whatever_.  
  
She flicks on the car radio anyway and it's as if fate is playing with her. Or whatever else sick twisted thing people believe on has a control over their lives. It's playing. More specifically: their song is playing. Jennie fails to make sense of how a six year old song manages to still slip into the mainstream radio.  
  
It's Jenga, and Jennie still knows the words to the song. Her tongue itches to sing to it, but she stops herself before it brings her back to memories. Brings herself back here, on the same city, with the same song playing on a different car, with a different person on the wheel and Jennie on the passenger's seat.  
  
_"Whoa, you got a car?" Jisoo gapes at the other girl who's currently gesturing at a new car like a marketer.  
  
"My mom got it for me as a graduation present." Jennie shrugs and walks toward Jisoo. "Figured we can take it out for a spin."  
  
"But you're horrible at driving." Jisoo interjects.  
  
"Am not."  
  
"Are too."  
  
"Am not."  
  
"Are too-"  
  
"Whatever. Let's just drive, shall we?" Jennie bows then hands Jisoo the key. "You drive. Let's go somewhere."  
  
"Where is somewhere?"  
  
"I don't know... let's get out of the city."_  
  
-  
  
Jennie lives in an apartment way too high up her building that it almost feels like hours before her elevator ride ends and finally stops at her floor. She's moved to a condominium unit too far away from her liking, and it's too modern- almost not a home, but more of an office. But whatever, it's not like it matters anyway, because Jennie is almost always at work.  
  
Her neighbor lives across her flat, and they've already once met, when Jennie was trying to move a box labeled with DON'T OPEN and then he conveniently stepped out the elevator, offering to help carry the box. Normally Jennie wouldn't have random people carry boxes into her own home, but said box is heavy and Jennie can use some help.  
  
His name is Minjoon, Jennie acquired when he finally drops the box down on her living room and had offered him for coffee. _Why is it labeled don't open?_ Minjoon had asked Jennie in curiosity.  
  
_Cause it shouldn't be opened_. Jennie had provided as an answer.  
  
Jennie goes to sleep in exhaustion, but not after she's done her nightly routine that her friend from France used to comment on. _I've never met anybody this particular on their skincare. Christ, you use like twenty bottles of things each night!_  
  
When she wakes up, it's not because of her alarm, but because of her phone practically yelling. Jennie feels a throb just behind her eyes and already feels a headache coming. Rosé is calling.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Oh no. Did you just wake up?" The other girl asks.  
  
"Yeah?" Jennie's voice is groggy and she sounds like a screamo band vocalist after an encore.  
  
"Christ, what time did you even sleep last night?" There's concern in her voice.  
  
"Like two?"  
  
"Okay- you know what? Just send me your address and Lisa and I will go there instead. You sound like a wreck. And I'm not just saying that because I'm a bit peeved that you forgot about our plans today."  
  
Jennie can even barely comprehend what Rosé is saying, but she does have a basic grasp on what the mushed words are implying, but what she really gets and focuses on is that Rosé never mentioned the name Jisoo. "God, I'm sorry. I got caught up with work last night and didn't remember our plans. What about Jisoo?" Jennie asks without thinking.  
  
"She has a case she's working on. She's been busy since a couple of days ago and I haven't had a chance to talk to her. I sent her a text last night but she said she couldn't go. So..."  
  
"Ah." It's totally just Jennie's imagination that her tone sounds almost disappointed. Totally made up.  
  
Right?  
  
"Why do you sound disappointed?" Rosé asks instantly, a teasing lilt to her voice. "Jennie Kim, do you have something you want to admit to your best friend?"  
  
Jennie grins. "Who says you're my best friend?"  
  
Rosé lets out a small gasp, faking offense. "You're rude."  
  
Jennie laughs. "Hurry up. I'll send the address and the room number."

(The whole afternoon is just of them three, watching stupid romcoms and Jennie nitpicking at each and every one of them, saying it gives little girls an unrealistic expectation of what love is supposed to look and feel like.)

-

The next day, Rosé visits her office.

"I honestly thought you'd have a messier office," She says once she's draped all over Jennie's lounge seat on the corner of her office, overlooking a busy street below. "I'm kind of surprised with how you cleaned up."

"Welp," Jennie shrugs, takes off her coat and hangs it. She sits down on her designated Boss Chair, as Rosé had dubbed it earlier on a jokey manner. "You did tell me to clean my workspace. Besides, I have more employees now, and they clean everything."  
  
Rosé narrows her eyes. "Sometimes I forget you're not a college student anymore."  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
"I don't know." Rosé looks around. Everything is organized and where it should be; the office is spot-on clean. She stops on a picture hanged on the wall. It's a wonderful photo: A purple-haired girl and another girl kissing, with the purple-haired girl's arms around the other girl's neck. They're in a garden, and Rosé recognizes it off the bat that it's the backyard garden in Jisoo's family's estate.  
  
(Rosé had taken the picture. She remembers the exact moment when she was just playing with the camera and decided to candidly snap a picture of the two. She had given the framed picture to Jennie on one Christmas.  
  
_It's perfect, Chaeng._ Jennie had said, clutching the photo to her chest.  
  
_Anything for my favorite couple._ )  
  
"-It's just weird seeing you all so... business-y." Rosé tries to ignore what she's just seen. It's not something that she wants to comment on either, because she doesn't know the reason behind the two's breakup - not even Lisa knows, and none of the two have exactly opened up about it for the past four year. All they know is that Jennie and Jisoo, the one unit, wasn't one unit anymore, and they were just Jennie, and just Jisoo. Not together. _Apart_. "For Christ's sake, you're wearing _power heels_. That's scary."  
  
Jennie rolls her eyes and fumbles around the papers in front of her. "Says the professional artist. I heard your latest exhibit was very successful."  
  
"How'd you know about it?"  
  
"One of your pieces had like, tens of thousands of retweets on twitter? You're one of those... trendy, hip, contemporary artists the kids look up to."  
  
Rosé rolls her eyes. "Yeah, but that's not all what I do."  
  
Jennie clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "Oh yeah. You run a cat and dog rescue. God, Roseanne Park, you are an angel."  
  
"Flattery will get you everywhere, Kim," Rosé comments and stands up from the seat. "Jisoo and I actually both own the rescue. It was Lisa's idea but she got too busy to have time for it so..."  
  
Let it be known that Park Chaeyoung, Rosé, is the queen of making Jennie Kim uncomfortable. Jennie's posture is weird, and Rosé knows the other girl too well for her to pass it off as something that's developed over the years.  
  
Despite Jennie Kim being practically encrypted, Rosé sees right through her.  
  
"Did you... perhaps talk to her?" She asks cautiously, picking her words carefully, almost like walking on eggshells.  
  
Jennie doesn't like it.  
  
"No." Jennie mumbles, suddenly changing demeanor and slumping down her chair. "What am I even supposed to say? _Hey, sorry for ignoring you when you tried to reach out for so many years_ , _do you want to get coffee_?" She sighs. "Rosé, I genuinely don't know what to do here. I want to be friends again. I really do. But..."  
  
"But what?"  
  
"That's the thing... I just. Don't know how to."  
  
"Because you guys were never really just friends from the start, huh?"  
  
"Yeah." Jennie mumbles. "Like... we started dating four months into freshman year. We weren't really subtle with our feelings back then."  
  
Rosé finds another seat in front of Jennie, just in front of her desk. "I guess I should just tell you."  
  
Rosé doesn't like being the bearer of bad news. She doesn't like being the one who has to rip off the band-aid. She doesn't like doing this -- not that she's had to do it in instances before this, but still. She doesn't want to do it. But she does anyway, and when she finally tells the dreaded news, Jennie looks as if she's lost all hope in the universe.  
  
  
Jennie Kim is unbelievably lucky ninety-six percent of the time. Like that one time when she won a new iPhone from a raffle draw when she was in college. Or how most of her pizza deliveries somehow end up being five minutes late, and therefore free. Or about that time when she got $50 front-row tickets to see The 1975 because somebody's mom had driven out of her way to sell tickets to a show her daughter couldn't go to.  
  
It seems that this exact moment is the small four percent where she's unlucky, and she receives earth-shattering news from her best friend. Not exactly earth-shattering, and really, Jennie's just being dramatic, but still.  
  
_I guess I should just tell you... Jisoo is dating somebody. Or at least I think they're dating? I don't know if they're exclusive but they've been going on dates for like three months now. Her name's Seulgi and she's a professor too, I think? And she's gorgeous and so beautiful it still amazes me how Jisoo managed to bed he- God, I'm being insensitive am I? Okay I'll stop- wait, are you Okay?_  
  
It's been thirty minutes since Rosé has left her office and Jennie has done nothing productive since, her mind just being clouded of thoughts of Jisoo and her being happy with somebody else, not her, not Jennie. Not Jisoo and Jennie. Jisoo and Seulgi or whatever her name is.  
  
Jennie doesn't snap out of it until her assistant personally calls her over the phone to remind her that she has a 9 o-clock meeting.  
  
God help Jennie Kim.  
  
-  
  
All plans to get together and meet up are ruined, because Rosé has to personally go see the person who wants to buy her pieces in Singapore ("Honestly, can't you just ship the damn thing to him?" Jennie had asked), Lisa just got hired for another fashion campaign in Japan, and Jisoo- well... Jennie knows nothing about what the girl has been up to.  
  
The last time they actually had direct contact was still when Jennie slipped and fell, and it's been a long time, about two weeks since the incident.  
  
So naturally, Jennie stays at home.  
  
There's really not much to do aside from whipping out a show on Netflix, so she does exactly that. She's halfway through the third episode of the second season when her phone buzzes on her nightstand. Somewhere in the back of her head she thinks it might be her assistant, or Patrick trying to ask what Jennie is up to, or maybe Rosé and Lisa. She pauses her show and looks at her phone and sees it's an unknown number.  
  
She answers it reluctantly. "Hello?"  
  
"Jennie Kim, I'm hurt." Jennie recognizes the familiar voice over the phone, and her smile takes over her entire face. "It's been, what, how many weeks since you've got here and I didn't even get a single hello?"  
  
"Ah, well you know me... I never make the first move."  
  
Jennie hears a chuckle. "Would you look at that, you're still stubborn and proud as ever."  
  
"What can I say, that's how I got to the top." Jennie says. "What's up Nayeon? Why are you calling- and I'm asking that in the nicest way possible. It's not-"  
  
"I'm calling you for an intervention."  
  
Jennie stops at her tracks. "Huh?"  
  
"I know for a fact you're probably watching some dumb show on a Saturday night."  
  
"Lisa told you, hasn't she?"  
  
"Jisoo told me, actually. She told me Chaeyoung and Lisa were both out of the country and knowing you, you won't get out of the house without me dragging you out. So go get ready. We're going somewhere."  
  
"Where?" Jennie asks curiously.  
  
"You remember that cute resto-bar we used to go to when we were like... in freshman year? It's a club now and I have unlimited access to it."  
  
"How did you acquire said unlimited access? You didn't kill anyone for it, did you?"  
  
"No." Nayeon drags out the vowel then chuckles. "I own it."  
  
Their phone call ends five minutes later, with Nayeon telling Jennie to get the sluttiest - Nayeon's words, not hers - dress she has on her wardrobe, put on the best makeup she can muster and wear the highest heels ever. Jennie has a feeling it's going to be a messy night.  
  
-  
  
_"Are you sure Nayeon won't cut our heads off when she figures out we ran out of her party?" Jisoo chuckles as she intertwines her fingers with Jennie. It's a cold November night, there are college students scattered on the lawn, and both of them are walking not in a straight line, because they're both undeniably buzzed. Jisoo's frequent giggle is a dead giveaway that she's not at all sober.  
  
"She probably thinks we're doing something inappropriate. I hate her." Jennie chuckles. She's cold and she's shivering, but it's not like she can ask Jisoo to get closer and snuggle, because with liquid courage or not, Jennie Kim is an absolute scaredy cat, and never ever does the first move.  
  
"Your hands are cold. Here." Jisoo says before she wraps an arm around the other girl. Jennie feels the warmest she's been.  
  
"Hey," Jennie starts reluctantly. "Is it true you're dating Junmyeon? Just... everybody's saying you guys are."  
  
"No, we're not." Jisoo chuckles. "Junmyeon and I are more of conventional lovers."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"We uh... we're each other's - for the lack of better wording - beards. I guess. He's dating a guy in my class. Chanyeol? And I'm not dating anybody, but it would be nice to at least hide my sexuality for a while. See, being a lesbian in a very conservative country that swears it's innovative and modern isn't really the best scenario."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Yeah. Oh wow, I totally just outed myself to you... You're not- you aren't fazed by this information right? Cause if you're homopho-"  
  
"No." Jennie cuts the other girl off before she jumps yo anymore conclusions. "I'm bi myself, or at least I think so. It's all confusing. I just... like both girls and boys."  
  
Jisoo smiles. "Cool."  
  
"So you guys aren't dating?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
Jennie's heart flutters a bit. She likes a girl who also likes girls and she isn't dating anyone, and she's not with Junmyeon. She likes a girl who's single and she wants to date her.  
  
Jennie Kim is eighteen. Jennie Kim is eighteen and a loser, and she can't ask a girl out who explicitly told her that she exclusively date women.  
  
Damn it.  
  
They walk in silence, the gravel beneath their boots are all they hear, and she doesn't feel uncomfortable. Not by one bit, and Jennie is thankful. Jisoo's arm is still wrapped around Jennie's.  
  
They walk like that until they reach Jisoo's dorm. They stop just in front of the gate, and Jisoo takes off her jacket and gives it to Jennie. "Here." She thrusts the jacket towards the other girl's chest.  
  
"What for?"  
  
"It's freezing and I don't want you catching a cold." Jisoo shrugs. "You can return it to me tomorrow. I'll see you at Room 201, right?"  
  
"Sure." Jennie smiles and puts on the jacket. "See you tomorrow, Jisoo."  
  
"See you tomorrow, Jendeukie."  
  
When Jennie reaches her room, she hugs the fabric to herself, and it isn't exactly something anybody does without judgment: Jennie is sniffing her friend's jacket on a saturday night. Great._  
  
\---  
  
Jennie wakes up with a horrible throb behind her eyes the next day. Her mouth feels dry, and she feels like she's just been hit by a bat on the head. She might as well be, because, really, her head hurts like hell, and whenever she blinks the pain just increases exponentially. Fucking Nayeon.  
  
She looks around the room she's just woke up on. It is absolutely not her own room, and she fears for a second that she's had a messy one night stand. It's the last thing she should be doing right now, because she's in the middle of business and conference calls and board meetings and designing her new line for the Korean market expansion.  
  
Thankfully though, thanks to her now More-mature decision making abilities, she's not naked, and she's in the same clothes she was in last night. It seems that she has not slept with anybody last night, which really, isn't too important right now, because she's still in somebody else's house. She grabs the nearest slides on the bed and slips them on.  
  
The room is nice, and the bed was exceptionally nice too. Jennie looks around and tries to find pictures of whoever's house she's in, but it seems that this is a guest room and there's not a clue anywhere in there. She cautiously steps out the room.  
  
"Hello?" She calls out, enough that it rings through the hallway.  
  
"Thank goodness, you're awake." Jennie hears somewhere, and she recognizes it immediately as Nayeon's voice. "I'm here on the kitchen."  
  
Jennie follows wherever the voice is coming from, and sees Nayeon already flipping pancakes on her rather fancy and complete kitchen. Nayeon has the full display of spice racks, each with their pretty container. Her cabinets are stacked with things Jennie doesn't know about. Ingredients, maybe?  
  
"When did you even learn how to cook?" Jennie asks incredulously once she's gotten a good look at her friend's kitchen. "Assuming you know how to, that is."  
  
"Oh, that?" Nayeon gestures to all of the racks and professional kitchen equipment. "I don't cook anything apart from instant ramen and pancakes and maybe some eggs. My girlfriend owns all those fancy things. She's a chef."  
  
Jennie nods and sits down on a breakfast bar. "You guys are living together?" Jennie asks. "You didn't do the u-haul thing, right? I expected better-"  
  
"Relax," Nayeon waves her off, putting the last pancake on the stack. "She moved in on our two year anniversary."  
  
"Good."  
  
Nayeon sets down the plate in front of Jennie. "Bon appetit?"  
  
"Aren't you going to eat?" Jennie asks, spreading butter on top, then coating the stack with too much maple syrup.  
  
"I drink those gross green smoothie things for breakfast." Nayeon says dryly, almost blanching.  
  
"On a diet?" Jennie's voice is muffled by the pancakes.  
  
"No. On a detox. I got diagnosed with high blood pressure like a month back and apparently I had to start living healthy... and you know Jihyo- she made me do all these healthy living stuff." Nayeon shrugs. "I basically just live on spinach-base juice and the occasional grilled fish."  
  
"Sounds sad," Jennie comments, nose scrunching. "Wait- did you just say Jihyo? Is it Park Jihyo?"  
  
Jennie knows Park Jihyo, of course. She was her roommate for two years, from freshman to sophomore year of college until Jihyo had to move out because Jihyo quit college. They weren't close enough to be labeled as friends, but they did share a good enough bond that had Jihyo buying canned coffee for Jennie on her sleepless nights studying the cell structure, and Jennie doing the same for Jihyo.  
  
"Yeah," Nayeon narrows her eyes. "How'd you know her?"  
  
"We were roommates for two years until she quit college... which I can only assume she did to go to culinary school?"  
  
"Ah," Nayeon replies. "See, maybe if you just continued keeping in touch while you were in New York maybe you'd have known all these new things about me."  
  
Jennie freezes and almost drops her fork. "Nayeonnie-"  
  
"I'm joking-"  
  
"Look." Jennie says, sincerity in her voice. "I wanted to keep in touch. I really did. But I just wanted to get away from everything and cut all of my connections with her and... you and I both know that my coping mechanisms while dealing with emotional distress aren't exactly healthy."  
  
"What's changed since then?"  
  
"Well for starters I'm a million-dollar fashion designer, so that's good." Jennie says, flipping her hair back with fake nonchalance. "And I grew up, of course. Got a bit more mature..."  
  
"By any chance, are you dating anyone?" Nayeon cuts her off. The question is out of the blue, and sure, Jennie has been asked the same question many times before. By people who are curious, or by people who want to... possibly date Jennie themselves. But this is Im Nayeon, impossibly motive-driven Im Nayeon, and she wouldn't be asking such a personal question without an ulterior motive.  
  
Jennie could choke on her pancake.  
  
"Uh... no?"  
  
Nayeon perks up. "Oh, that's perfect. I'm friends with this really cute gay girl on my yoga class, and she's a surgical doctor and if I weren't so in love with Jihyo I'd totally date her."  
  
Jennie nods, unsure of what she's supposed to make of the information she's just been provided. "Okay, and?"  
  
"I'm trying to set you up, dumbass," Nayeon says. "She's totally single and is so cute, and so are you. I think you guys will like each other."  
  
"Nayeon-"  
  
" _Jennie_."  
  
"Nayeon I'm so, _so_ busy. I barely have time for friends. I'm not, like, here to find someone." Jennie shrugs. "And besides, I won't stay here very long. I'll leave in less than a year."  
  
Jennie isn't lying. Is she stretching the truth out a little bit? Maybe. But is she lying about not having time for anything other than her clothing line? No. Maybe it's because of the fact that she hasn't had a good candidate for an executive manager, or the fact that she doesn't even have an executive manager yet, but once she does, maybe, just maybe, she can finally get the me time she needs.  
  
But as for now, her sales in Korea are doing well, the amount of investors are piling up, and she absolutely does not want to do anything to ruin that.  
  
"Just try.  
-  
  
"So let me get this straight. Or not."  
  
"That joke is old, stop using it."  
  
Lisa raises an eyebrow. "Fine. But just sort this out in my head, because I'm a little confused. You spend, like, ninety percent of your time mooning after Jisoo -"  
  
"I do not."  
  
She rolls her eyes. "As I was saying, you spend ninety percent of your time mooning after Jisoo, who's already dating someone, and you reject a pretty girl that Nayeon set you up with?  
  
"None of that is correct," Jennie says with a scowl at her comforter. Lisa thrusts a mug of hot chocolate into her hands.  
  
"Uh-huh," she says, sitting down beside Jennie on Lisa's bed. "Sure."  
  
"She wasn't that pretty."  
  
"Sure she isn't."  
  
"I'm not mooning after Jisoo."  
  
"Sure you aren't."  
  
"She's got a girlfriend that teaches Physics and Quantum Mechanics. Physics, Lisa."  
  
"But who's stalking, huh?"  
  
Jennie's scowl intensifies. "Will you shut up?"  
  
"Are you telling me you're still not hung up on Jisoo?"  
  
"I absolutely am not," Jennie replies. It's a lie, and she knows Lisa will be able to tell as soon as it's left her mouth.  
  
"Yeah," she says wryly, dragging the word out enough to sufficiently convey her disbelief. "People stalk their exes current love interest most of the time, I'm sure."  
  
"Look, your past relationships last like, two months max, I don't know why you feel like you're so qualified to judge."  
  
"Touché," Lisa says, lifting up the hand that isn't holding her own mug of hot chocolate as a gesture of surrender. "You may be right. I just don't see what the point is to denying."  
  
"I don't like her anymore," Jennie says emphatically for what feels like the billionth time.  
  
"But you still deflect all her advances to hang out," she points out.  
  
She lets out a noise of frustration. "Okay, fine! What do you want, Lisa? To continue debating the semantics of Jisoo and I's broken relationship until dawn? Because that doesn't sound like an ideal way to spend one's time."  
  
Lisw smiles calmly, taking a sip of her hot chocolate. "I want you to tell me why you guys ended things the way you did."  
  
This stops her short. "What?"  
  
She shrugs. "Chaeyoung and I have always been walking on eggshells when it comes to discussions about you two. None of us know what happened. And maybe it's time for you to open up about it. Take it off your chest."  
  
"I don't know what you're talking about."  
  
"You do. You ever wonder if maybe I'm tired of watching you always bottle up your feelings?"  
  
"Who said I do that?" Jennie snaps.  
  
"Anyone with a pair of working eyes," Lisa says, rolling her eyes once again. "So, what actually happened? Cause from what I remembered, you drank for a whole disgusting week, and Rosé and I were alternating on a chore to get you out of bars. Or make sure you were alive. Imagine how shocked I was that after that one week, you leave with no proper goodbye, and just left on a whim. So. What happened?"  
  
"Well, apart from the fact that she -" Jennie cuts herself off. "I can't tell you."  
  
"Oh my God, are we still on this?" she interrupts, sighing."So many years of you running away and not telling us the reason why. I'm your friend-  _we're_ your friends."  
  
Jennie keeps her eyes fixed on the comforter she's sat on. "I can't," she says softly.  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Because..." She stares at the mug cupped in her hands, how the liquid in it is slowly moving from one side to the other. "Because I might end up digging up things I never want to dig up again."  
  
"What's wrong with that?"  
  
"Everything," Jennie says, voice hardening slightly. Lisa sighs.  
  
"Jennie, did she do something wrong? Did she cheat? Did  _you_  cheat? What happened, really?"  
  
"I proposed to her, okay?" Jennie almost shouts, eyes glassy and her grip on the mug is almost too strong that her knuckles are turning white. She puts the mug down on a table before she breaks it. The sound of the mug hitting the wooden table with a soft thud resonates throughout the whole room. "I... I proposed to her on our sixth year anniversary."  
  
Jennie's voice is cracking, but she wills herself not to cry. She's done it before, and she'll do it again.  
  
"And she said no." Lisa completes, voice soft and empathetic. "So that's why-"  
  
"I couldn't bear to see her again after that. And because of the fact that she was right."  
  
"You guys were too young."  
  
"I didn't think that." Jennie says, voice hard. She's clutching the blanket. "She was 25, I was 24. I thought she was ready. I thought she would be okay with it." Jennie laughs bitterly. "She wasn't done with her fucking last year of law school yet. Told me she needed that."  
  
"Did she... ask for time off, though? Like did she actually explicitly told you she wanted to break up?"  
  
"No. I just... ran off the country. She tried contacting me for months. Until she eventually gave up."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"You know..." Lisa starts off slowly. "She was a mess when you left the country. All of us three were, actually, but Jisoo was... she was wrecked. She couldn't get out of the room for weeks. We had to force her to eat stuff."  
  
"Yeah, that tends to happen when you end a six-year relationship." Jennie chuckles (she knows exactly how not leaving the room and eating for days feels like). Or she tries to, at least. Her voice is strained, and Lisa knows she's holding back tears because if there's anything Jennie Kim is good at, it's being undeniably stupid and stubborn.  
  
"So tell me,"  
  
"Tell you what?"  
  
"Why you haven't texted her yet."  
  
"Who says I haven't?"  
  
"She did." Lisa shrugs, putting down her mug. "She told me she kind of came onto you, or at least she tried to. And you didn't text her."  
  
"She's already in a relationship."  
  
"She wants to be friends again, Jennie."  
  
"I can't do friends. I can't handle it. I want to be able to bring us four together again, I really do. But I can't do it so... abruptly. I was so, _so_ , in love with her. And I've been so used to not have her around and now she's... a text away."  
  
"So what do you want to do?" Lisa queries.  
  
"That's just it. I don't what to do, or what I want."  
  
"Whatever you choose to do," Lisa wraps an arm around her best friend. "I'll be here to support you."


End file.
